The dull knock returns beneath the ledger. The floorboard splits along a hidden seam, and a narrow hatch opens into a root cellar breathing cold earth.
An emaciated man, a gaunt middle-aged human with hollow cheeks, thinning dark hair, and a scarred eyebrow, climbs from the darkness, wrapped in a rotted brown coat. He carries a rusted handbell in one hand and marked bones bundled in stained cloth.
Ephraim Vale
Do not open the book. I am Ephraim Vale, and I survived the Follower's last visit by promising it the next person who read the countermark.
Behind Ephraim, the cellar steps creak one by one. Something begins descending, though the darkness above the stair remains empty.
Mara Vey
You made a bargain with that thing? Then why bring its promise here?
Ephraim Vale
Because it came early. The promise was meant for a reader, not for what followed me into the cellar.
Outside, the three dead guardians turn toward the shed at once. Their bound silence tightens around the walls as another step sounds below Ephraim.